What some observers might have missed during evidence given by the Australian Securities and Investments Commission during a Senate Estimates Committee hearing was a coalition Senator pointing a finger at a gaping hole that any sane person would want filled.

Senator Andrew Bragg asked representatives from the corporate regulator whether the ASIC was the body that would field questions related to the Australian Financial Complaints Authority.

Bragg was referring to the fact AFCA doesn’t appear before Senate Estimates and he was clearly casting his net out to find an agency that might be able to answer his questions about AFCA.

While a relevant minister, Senator Jane Hume, was at the table on behalf of the government and offered to take questions, Bragg’s point, which was made in a very brief and fleeting exchange, was an entirely appropriate issue to raise.

AFCA is a body that is referred to by politicians and also by journalists as the authority to which consumers can complain about banks and other financial organisations.

Many consumers and, indeed, politicians have argued that the financial services sector needs to clean its house following the revelations of multiple inquiries conducted by parliamentary committee and the Hayne Royal Commission’s year-long corporate drama.

Why on earth doesn’t AFCA routinely appear before parliamentary committees given the prominence the behaviour of financial services professionals has received in commentary in the media and throughout parliamentary committee hearings?

Consider the amount of work done by committees over two decades related to the rights of customers of financial services institutions – not to mention the royal commission itself.

A complaints mechanism is a critical part of a system that needs to ensure that it rebuilds and maintains consumer confidence in the sector but the inability of politicians to quiz AFCA as they can other authorities on a regular basis is, quite frankly, a joke.

It makes sense that AFCA should appear before routine parliamentary committee hearings irrespective of any structural quirks that might currently keep it from the cast of thousands that sit and wait to appear before estimates.

Bragg’s point is worthy of attention and not just because the Economics Committee of the House of Representatives is conducting a hearing into the insurance sector on June 25 as a part of its regular tyre kicking exercise of the financial services marketplace.

AFCA must be seen to be just as accountable as every other authority involved in the financial services sector.

It is up to the responsible ministers to fix this anomaly at once and take whatever steps are necessary to make AFCA front up.